According to a report published by the National Institute of Statistics last November, 17% of sales transactions in our country were made by foreigners who did not reside in Spain. These data show the interest of foreigners in holiday homes and mortgages for non-residents.
Mortgages for non-residents are mortgage loans that financial institutions grant to people who have their tax domicile in another country and who, therefore, do not habitually live in the country where they buy the home.
Generally, they are foreigners who want to buy a property in our country, normally a second home, and request financing from a Spanish entity.
Currently, the capital loaned in mortgages for non-residents does not usually exceed 70% of the appraisal or sale value of the property in question, and this percentage can even drop to 50%, depending on the profile of the applicant and the characteristics of the property. For this reason, these are mortgage loans for which the applicant must have a significant amount of savings.
As you can imagine, the main reasons for buying a home in Spain are quality of life, sunshine and good connections to their countries of origin. But do you know who buys the most houses in our country? And what type of house they are looking for?
According to data from the College of Property Registrars , the British are the non-residents who bought the most homes in our country in 2015 (19.8%) followed by the French (8.1%), Germans (7.6%); Belgians (6.4%); Swedes (5.5%) and Italians (5.3%).
The buyer profile is that of a person between 50 and 60 years old, married and with children, a high level of education and an annual income of more than 60,000 euros.
These buyers are looking for relatively large houses. According to another report , 33% of all homes purchased by foreigners in 2013 were larger than 100 m2 , and 77% were between 80 and more than 100 m2 . Only 5% of the homes purchased were less than 40 square metres. The largest homes were purchased by the Dutch, Swedes and Danes: between 45% and 51% of the homes purchased by these nationalities were larger than 100 square metres.
Finally, the areas that interest them the most are those with the greatest tourist appeal in our country: Costa del Sol, Balearic Islands, Valencia or Canary Islands.
For more information, visit our Quick Guide to Mortgages for Foreigners in Spain.
